We have arrived safely in New Zealand. English signs & brown sauce, wonderful!! We finished off Chile seeing the Otway Sound penguin colony where there are 6000 breeding pairs, There were lots of youngsters losing their baby feathers. They were gorgeous. The following day we got on a flight back to Santiago, which had 2 stops on the way. A 6 hour wait at Santiago before our 11 hour flight to Auckland. South America was brilliant. A quick summary, we have stayed the night in 44 different hostals, taken 16 flights, had to call on 3 doctors, 5 courses of antibiotics, [View Full Entry]

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My last update left us on our way to Valdivia, a small town by the river. There was a colourful fish market right by the river where a family of sealions get fed with the scraps. We also went to the Kunstmann German brewery for a few beers & I had Sauerkraut for dinner. Wonderful. There was a bierfest in town, where we watched horse jumping & bizarrely enough a competition of men cutting logs with chainsaws! After only 2 nights we caught a bus to Pueto Montt sea port where we stayed in a hostal called Suize. The owner was [View Full Entry]

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My last update left us in Santiago & wine tasting. We went to the Concha Y Toro winery (Chris's birthday treat) where we were shown round the lovely grounds & the vines & got to taste a few wines. Very nice. We got there by metro & bus. It took quite a while & we got a few odd looks from the locals, but everyone wanted to help & show us what bus to get on , where to get off etc. It was a brilliant day. We left Santiago for Valparaiso on the 15th Jan which was a couple of [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone Not alot to report from us, so its only a brief update. We flew back to Rio from Iguacu Falls and managed to get straight on a bus to Saquerma which was a couple of hours away. We thought it would be similar to the beach resort of Montanita in Ecuador where the boys went surfing, but sadly it wasnt as nice. Even worse, the price of hostals was ridiculous compared to what we were used to paying. However, the weather was lovely, there was a nice pool and the hostal was on the white sandy beach. We spent [View Full Entry]

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Happy New Year to you all!! So whats new with the Ganders:- We left Sao Paulo on sunday 30th Dec. We caught the metro to the bus station & then a 6 hour bus journey to Rio through lush green countryside. Most comfortable coach so far. Taxi to our hostel a few blocks away from Copocabana beach. We had to pay 3 times the usual price for a one bedroom apartment with 2 bunkbeds in the kitchen which we shared for 4 nights. We went for a walk along the beach which would have been beautiful had it had millions of [View Full Entry]

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We spent 3 nights in Cusco after the Inca Trail to give our legs time to recover. Miles was still not well & we had to get a doctor to him too. He had the same as me, but Tina recovered quickly¨& was ok. I think hers was food poisoning. We flew back to Lima xmas eve lunch time & booked into our lovely hotel (Tina´s birthday treat). I got my hair cut (still a mess). Wish it was still straight! Tina¨& I made xmas crackers¨& we wrapped our secret santa presents up. I phoned home & spoke to my mum, [View Full Entry]

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We were picked up at 6.30am to begin our inca trail. I felt the best I have felt in the last 3 weeks & finally had a good appetite. Hooray. The anti biotics were working!! We stopped off at Ollantaytambo on the way for breakfast & then a further hour or so up the road we could begin our walk. Chris & Tina hired walking sticks (they both have injured knees) poor old sods, we passed over a bridge & prayed to the gods with coco leaves for a safe journey & got under way. Our guide was Boneth who was [View Full Entry]

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So what else have we been up to since my last update:- We had a day trip to Lake Titicaca on the 11th Dec which was brilliant. First, we were taken to Los Uros floating islands where we were shown how the islands were made & how they have to replace the layer of reeds every 15 days as the islands sink slowly. Today there are only 2000 people living on them & their way of life was amazing to see. So basic, no luxuries. The family sang us songs & gave us all a necklace to always remember them by. [View Full Entry]

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I have not had a very nice time of late due to several illnesses, so theres not alot to tell you. We left Lima on tuesday 4th Dec on a daytime bus to Nazca which took around 5 hours. The views were amazing along the way. Huge mountains of sand everywhere & we also went through Pisco where they had the earthquake earlier in the year. There was still alot of rebuilding works going on & you could see the devastation that was caused. At this point I had just got over a 24 hour stomach bug, followed by a cold [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone Just a short update to let you know that we have arrived safely in Peru. We spent 4 nights after the Galapagos in Puerto Lopez beach resort, but it was very quiet. Alot of restaurants & bars were closed, we felt like the only tourists there, so we decided to move onto Montenita. It was described as surfers paradise & alot more busy. Had a lovely 2 nights there sun bathing & the boys had a surfing lesson. Its harder than it looks, they could just about stand on the board for a few seconds before falling off. They [View Full Entry]

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